I mentioned Bob on another post in the 4% SWR thread (
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/post-fire/fire-on-4/msg1018110/?topicseen#msg1018110) and today this interview popped up in my feed:
http://retireearlylifestyle.com/aaa/bob_claytt_interview.htmBilly & Akaisha have been FI and perpetual travelers since 1991 (celebrating 25 years soon) while Bob has been ER'd since 2001. His book "Work Less, Live More" was written with the help of the posters on Early-Retirement.org. He also spent a considerable sum (of prospective royalties) for the financial modeling and backtesting of his recommended portfolios and his 4%/95% withdrawal system. It's one of the first variable-spending withdrawal plans.
These three were all part of the inspiration that led to me using the same crowdsourcing process to write "The Military Guide".
All of us are using withdrawal systems around 4% (or even higher). We're past the sequence-of-returns risk (the first 5-10 years) and well into the period where we'll probably have more money than we need for the rest of our lives. But otherwise our lifestyles have all taken wildly divergent paths.
In the interview Bob kinda sorta mentions that he dabbles in art. Well, it's a lot more than that: a custom backyard sculpting studio, an oversize kiln, trips to overseas foundries for huge metal castings, NYC gallery art shows, and even nude models. FI freed him to pursue his lifelong interest, and he's pursued it with a vengeance: *
http://www.clyattsculpture.com/Back in 2007 Bob was kind enough to host me at his home for an afternoon. He's the real deal. He didn't have the custom studio back then, and the house was filling up with sculpture supplies...
You can probably find a copy of WLLM at your local library, and Bob has occasionally updated his research at E-R.org (he posts as ESRBob). His last update was April 2012 in this thread:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/rational-investing-portfolio-bob-clyatt-55634.html[ * I'm referring to the sculpting, not just the nude models.]
